The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-04-11
EQUAL SUFFRAGE In KANSAS
Mrs. Helen N. Cougar Tells About It's
First Trial in That Commonwealth.
The Way Woman Voters Look and Act-Re-
publican Gans-Democrats Resort to Lies
and Slanders-Issues at Leayenworth.

Kansas is the first State in the Union to grant
women the privilege to vote and hold Office in
cities the same as men.
All towns with population Of two hundred
and fifty over may be Incorporated. Women
having long enjoyed the privilege of school suf-
frage, and most towns being Incorporated. it is
readily seen that Kansas is most nearly free
State. So far as voting for State and national
officers is concerned the law still reads "Citi-
zens, or those who have declared their intention
to become so, except rebels convicts idiots and
the insane, can vote after residence OF six
months in the State and thirty days in the voting
precinct" women, by omission or implication,
being classed with the above irresponsible
classes Registration is required in cities Of the
first and second class only.
Women have not heretofore, to any great ex-
tent, awaited themselves of school suffrage The
thought of municipal suffrage was new until
two years ago, the winter just passed. when l
caused the bill to be introduced in the Legis-
lature then assembled. Though there had been
no preceding agitation of the subject througout
the State, soon as the bill was brought for
ward the Republican press and the great masses
of the people seemed to sanction it's passage,
the women from one end of the State to the
other demanded, by petition, its speedy adop-
ton. Though but two years interviewed. it be-
came the law last February, BY the votes Of Re-
pubicans; all Democrats in the Senate and
twenty-five out Of twenty-sx in the House, OPP
posing it.
Doubtless the thought of the utility as we'll
as the justice of this law, weighed nightly
with Republican Kansans. Indeed, many of
its ablest champions were free to declare that
there was much legislation in the interest of
good morals in the State that could not be suff-
GENTLY enforced without the aid of woman suf-
frage, at least. in all the larger cities.
The oft-made objection that women will not
vote if the franchise is extended to them has
been forever answered by the conduct of Kansas
women In the municipal elections that have just
closed. l have in my possession sufficient Off
cial returns from first and seconded cities to
show that more than two-ffths of all the regis
tered voters in these April elections are women:
also that not over two-fifths of the men voters
rule, register and vote. 1t appears from
this that women do quite as we'll men and as
fully appreciate their privileges and duties
citizens, even in the a, b, C of their political
life. In smaller cities, where registration is not
required, the women have more generally voted
than in the larger towns, in almost every in
stance electing their full ticket for, be il said
the honor of this new class of voters, .womens
tickets" have been much in the field. while they
have taken very lively hand in caucuses, pri-
mares and conventions.
Men have paid great regard to the wishes of
women in the selection of candidates, and in
numerous places women have been elected to
school Offices, have been employed in registra-
tion offices and served on election boards So
does the vote bring power and consequent
spect. 1t is worth millions" more than 'silent
influences" in public matters. as the present test
shows.
There have been but few towns where women
have not congregated to rejoice and pass resolu-
tions setting forth their sentiments in no uncer-
tain manner. These expressions have been out
mol ken for n inst Of rtI and
have been duly notified that partisan strife shall
cot take precedence over clean records and high
moral principles with women voters. AS gen.
eral thing, the new voters have shown their abil-
ity to pass through the past election with all the
attendant excitement, and schemirg, and local
interests without forgetting their high standard
as expressed in words; there have been, how
ever, some exceptions, which show that human
natOre is quite q womanly as well as manly
attribute.
One of my chief tenets in urging the adoption
of this law and its application in Kansas was to
show that by the votes OF my the present
rule of the vicious and tramp elements in large
cities can be eliminated, especially that of the
whisky alliance. That my position was we'll
taken is proven by the returns from the present
elections which, in many instances, put good
mon in power where bad men have heretofore
reigned supreme.
Probablyin no place was so trying a test made
AS in Leavenworth the largest city in the State,
having O population of about 40 O0O This city
has, from its very foundation, been the great
final battlefield between the contending ele-
ments of good and bad citizenship in the State
of Kansas. 1t is situated the picturesque
and winding banks of the Missouri river, which
divided it, in the days gone by, between slave
and free territory, and In the midst of which was
fought the issue as to which side of human liberty
Kansas should take her stand. Borderruffian-
ism had its life and death here, far the slave
question was concerned
Leavenworth is to-day engaged in no less i'm
portant warfare between law and lawlessness
than she was in the old days of slavery.
Since the adoption Of the prohibitory amend
ment she has been the cessp poo. of the State into
which the lawless whisky element had drifted
and utterly defed the will OF the people, earning
thereby the contempt of the great and progress
i've State that she continues to disgrace by her
lawlessness.
She has the penitentary to pour its ex-con-
victs each day upon her streets: she has the mil
itary prison on the other side of her and coal
mines, with their attendant floating population,
which is largely Polish, Irish and German, and
other influences to overcome that make her diff
fcu.t to bring to high degree of sobriety and
law-abding.
or course, it is almost unnecessary to repeat
In this connection that Leavenworth is under a
Democratic administration; any one at all con-
versant with Western politics needs only to be
told that where the whisky element rules Demo
Gratis hold sway.
For the past four years an administration, un-
der Mayor Nicely, has allowed over two hundred
saloons and their attendant institutions to rum;
law abiding people have been helpless IN the
hands of this man, the friend of saloons
brothels, gambling dens, and the head leader of
jobs and rings that have bankrupted the finances
of the city as we'll as its morals. Two years ago
this man was elected by majority of l, 700 In
to this Sodom, and before such municipal cor
ruption, came tho new voters which clothed the
law-abiding people with hope. Members of the
Legislature had exacted promise of me that
would aid in organizing and leading the women
of the city in their difficult battle, and, if posi-
BILE, change the tide of affairs. Into this work /
came. The women rallied at my call and worked
with zeal. and might, and wisdom that re-
suited in putting 2, 226 names of women on the
registration books over and against 4, 3IS men.
AT first the administration hurled only con-
tempt, ridicule and falsehood at the newly quail
ihed electors, but when each day developed the
long list OF new names the books the whisky
alliance became alarmed. They then issued
cringing circulars to lady voters pleading for
their support and begging them not to follow "a
stranger that did not own one dollars worth of
property in the city," raising cry of home
rule" Unfnching and undivided still stood
my noble troops, making house to house
canvass, urging ali women, regardless of race.
color condition. to use their new privilege
With disrnay the whisky alliance watched the
''women's registration" and held meetings finally
to decide how to get rid of that woman from
Indiana" For eighteen days delivered lectures
each AFTERNOON and evening to audiences linn
tied in size only by the capacity of the buildings
to hold them.